


Take a Swig with Steve Rogers

by xceru



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: 1930s, 1940s, Alcohol, Canon Compliant ish, M/M, Pre-Canon, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Queer bar
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-02
Updated: 2021-02-02
Packaged: 2021-03-13 19:07:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,388
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29158641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xceru/pseuds/xceru
Summary: Bucky and his friends create a Steve Rogers drinking game.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Comments: 6
Kudos: 39





	Take a Swig with Steve Rogers

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sereneGrimalkin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sereneGrimalkin/gifts).



> For Grim, who helped me come up with the rules. Thank you for being such a fun presence in the SRNY discord server! I hope this version of stucky makes you ✨soft✨

Bucky’s at the bar near the Navy Yard—the one on Sands they always go to after work—watching Steve argue with a fella by the jukebox when he gets the idea, this comprehensive summary of Steve Rogers’ queerest parts: _Take a Swig with Steve Rogers_ , the Rogers’ friends’ guide to going out with him. They’re at the bar with Charlie Holliman, an accountant Steve cruised in ‘38 who took a liking to them both, and Mark Dunn, a bear from the Yard who slips Bucky extra cigs while they work. None of the four are there together, exactly, but the possibility is always in the air, infecting conversations with the unspoken truth of every queer bar: Any one of them could sleep with any other, if they only had the foresight to ask.

Charlie talks off Dunn’s ears about some broad at work while Bucky watches Steve’s quarrel at the juke fade into a flirtation—after minutes of yelling and one well-placed shove, Steve wraps his arms around the fella’s neck and pulls him in for a kiss. They stand there for a while, sucking face against the wall, before some femme demands access to the juke and Steve is forced to pull away. He whispers something in the fella’s ear, at which the man smiles and blushes, then walks over to Bucky and their friends.

“Did he change his mind about Billie Holiday?” Bucky asks with a laugh as Steve slides onto the bench beside him. Bucky slings an arm around Steve’s shoulders with an ease that only comes from repetition. 

“Nah,” Steve replies, sinking into Bucky’s side. “I’ll win the next one.”

“My question,” Charlie says, twisting his head away from Dunn such that his glasses fall down his nose, “is why he didn’t give up the crusade after all of the necking? That fella last week changed the song as soon as he saw you march over!”

“That goon didn’t have it in ‘im,” Steve slurs. He turns into Bucky’s shoulder and nudges his jaw until Bucky lifts his chin and rests it on top of Steve’s head. Steve nuzzles Bucky’s collarbone, his flyaway hairs tickling Bucky’s chin.

Bucky flattens Steve’s hair down and chuckles. “Charlie, you’re right about one thing. It is a law of physics, of equal caliber and relevance as Newton’s, that Steve Rogers, upon entering any bar on Sands, will inevitably confront a man about the jukebox.”

“ _Lies_ ,” Steve slurs. “Baseless claims.” The menacing intended by his tone is weakened by his fluttering eyelashes, which Bucky can feel against his neck.

“Half the time Rogers ends up making time with them,” Dunn says, grabbing his drink from the table and taking a swig of ale. Dunn is twice Steve’s height and triple his weight, yet always gets the drunkest out of all of them. “I don’t know how he does it.”

Bucky gestures to Dunn’s drink and laughs. “If we took a swig each time, we’d be out like a light before ten.”

Charlie’s eyes flash and he breaks into a smile. “Anyone here have a pen?” he yells. When no one at their table offers one up, Charlie says, “Back in a flash,” and heads to the bar.

Dunn raises an eyebrow at Bucky. Bucky shrugs.

Charlie returns a few minutes later with a fountain pen, a sheet of paper, and a bottle of ink. At the top, he writes, _Take a swig with Steve Rogers_. Two lines below, he writes, _Take a swig if Rogers is enraged by a man’s selection on the jukebox_ , then below, _Take another if Rogers confronts whoever chose it_ , and finally, _Take a third if they start necking_. Bucky snickers as he reads over Charlie’s shoulder, which causes Steve to stir.

Steve leans forward and frowns at the paper. “I did that one time,” he says.

“You did that five minutes ago, pal,” Bucky returns. Steve shrugs and relaxes against Bucky’s chest, tugs Bucky’s beer out of his grasp, takes a sip, then makes a disgruntled noise and places it back in Bucky’s hand. Steve leaves his hand on the bottle, and when Bucky moves his to take a drink, Steve’s moves with it.

“There’s gotta be more of these,” Charlie says, glaring at the paper and frowning. “Rogers does the same things every time we come out. How about when he looks into a bottle and says, ‘God bless America’?”

Dunn nods and Charlie writes it down. “Or when he mentions ‘the right thing to do,’” adds Dunn.

“Or when he corners some sap by the bar to discuss ‘the state of the world,’” Bucky says with a laugh. “I swear I was gonna make time with that queen the other night before Steve started talking his ear off about the ‘dangerous precedent set by the Eighteenth Amendment.’”

“I remember him,” Steve mumbles into Bucky’s neck. “I wanted him for myself.”

“That was _flirting_?” Bucky laughs. He knocks lightly on Steve’s head. “Is there a brain up there?”

“A better one than yours,” Steve says back. He leans into Bucky’s knuckles, so Bucky opens his palm and rests it on the side of Steve’s head.

“All right,” Charlie says. “Here’s what we got. _Take a swig if Rogers, while flirting, rants about ‘the state of the world.’_ ”

“Another if the guy actually listens!” yells Dunn, and Bucky snorts out a laugh.

“ _Take a swig if Rogers stares into his bottle and says, ‘God Bless America.’ Take a swig if Rogers mentions ‘the right thing to do.’_ ” Charlie pushes up his glasses, then flattens the page on the table so all four of them can see. Dunn and Bucky lean forward, and Steve whines as his position against Bucky’s chest is interrupted. Charlie cocks his head and asks, “What else?”

“Take a swig when Steve is always right,” Steve says confidently, slamming his fist on the table. “Another round?”

“I think you’ve had enough,” Bucky says, still chuckling. He unsticks his hand from Steve’s head and moves Steve’s fist off the table, bringing it to rest on his thigh. He then tries to flatten it so he can entwine Steve’s hand with his, but Steve keeps it balled in a fist. “Take a swig if he starts a fight,” Bucky says, resting his hand on Steve’s wrist. 

“And another if he loses,” Dunn adds.

“Two if he wins!” Charlie laughs, writing it down.

“Take a swig if Rogers lets someone cut in line for the bathroom,” Dunn says. He claps Steve on the back. “Considering what a goddamned hellion he is, the kid sure is polite.”

“You can’t say that,” Steve says. He leans forward, gets up in Dunn’s face. “I’m a Catholic.”

Bucky’s mouth bursts open in laughter and he covers his face in his hands. The noises of the bar surround him: Billie Holiday playing on the jukebox, drag queens bickering around the stage, butches clinking pool balls while their femmes cheer them on. To Bucky, it’s an orchestra, and Steve is the conductor, bringing the whole company together.

He’s hit by a wave of affection. Bucky moves his arm around Steve’s waist and pulls him back into his side. Steve continues to glare but doesn’t protest, just fixes his eyes on Dunn’s shoulders, which shake with laughter, as Bucky draws him in.

“This isn’t over,” Steve says to Dunn’s hand, which is covering his face.

“Yes, it is,” Dunn says with a snicker, lightly pushing Steve’s shoulder before reaching for a cigarette.

Bucky feels Steve’s back tense against his chest, but as Bucky rubs small circles on his back, Steve relaxes and arches into the touch. It’s funny how easy it is to mollify Steve when he’s like this, when all he wants to do is fight but the instinct can be overpowered by a simple touch.

“Aha,” Bucky says, raising his beer in the air. “Take a swig if he talks about his ma.”

“God may she rest,” Steve mutters. He holds an imaginary drink in the air and takes an imaginary swig.

Bucky takes a real one. “To Sarah,” he says.

“To Sarah,” echo Charlie and Dunn. They never met her, but for all the time Steve spends rambling about her, they might as well have.

“Hey, remember a few months back when Rogers got in a spat with that fella for not talking to his ma?” Charlie asks, smirking into his glass.

Dunn lets out a guffaw. “‘You don’t know how lucky you are,’” he quotes. “‘I’d run from Hell to high water just to argue with my ma again.’”

“That wasn’t funny,” Steve says. “His ma is alive, and what, he just lets her kick him out for being queer?”

“Lets her,” Bucky says. “Steve Rogers, everybody. If your ma kicks you out, don’t let her.”

“It’s important to honor your family.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Bucky’s hand drops from Steve’s shoulders to his waist and squeezes. Steve turns his face against Bucky’s shoulder and closes his eyes.

Then Steve jerks up and out of Bucky’s hold. “Another round?” 

“Pal, we cut you off ten minutes ago.”

“Like Hell you did.” Steve shoves his way out of the table and stumbles over to the bar.

Bucky sighs. “What the hell am I gonna do with him?”

Charlie watches Steve wave at the bar, trying to get the bartender’s attention. “Didn’t Rogers go home with him?”

“With who?”

“The guy whose ma kicked him out. Didn’t Steve take him home?”

“He did,” Bucky says. He remembers that night. Steve was yelling, and then he was whispering, and then he was grinning at Bucky as he and the motherless queer left the bar. When Bucky got home an hour later, Steve and the fella were on their couch, talking. The man was crying. Steve’s arm was wrapped around his shoulders.

“Johnny’s sleeping on the couch tonight,” Steve said. Bucky just nodded, his heart doing kickflips in his chest, before he walked into the room they shared and collapsed on his twin bed. When they woke up, Johnny was gone, and so was Steve’s wallet. On the couch was Steve’s ID, propped up against the cushion, staring at Bucky and Steve.

“Take another swig if Rogers is flirting when he talks about his ma,” Dunn says. Bucky looks down at his beer.

When Steve gets back to the table, he’s carrying four shots of whiskey in his arms. 

Bucky groans. “You know I’m the one who ends up carrying you home, right?”

Steve waves him off and places the shots on the table. “I can handle it.”

One by one, each of them pulls a shot glass towards them. Bucky rests his thumbs on the lip of his, the smooth glass grounding his trembling hands. Then they hold the glasses up, clink them all together, and down the shots.

Bucky is hit by the familiar shake of alcohol falling through his body. He shivers and turns to Steve, who’s coughing loudly.

Bucky claps him on the back until Steve swats his hand away.

“Take a swig if Rogers coughs after insisting he can handle his drink,” Dunn says with a laugh. 

“That’s enough of that,” Steve says. The jukebox clicks, and Billie Holiday fades into an upbeat tune that Bucky doesn’t recognize.

Steve breaks into a grin, then covers a final cough. He holds his hand out to Bucky. “Dance with me.”

“Like Hell.”

“C’mon, Buck, dance with me.”

Bucky sighs and stands up from the table.

Steve wiggles his body while Bucky nods his head. He gets into it after a while, letting his body move with the music, his drunkenness leading the way. He’s light as a feather on that grimy bar floor, his shoes sticking and unsticking whenever he lifts up his feet. It’s nice, he thinks. It’s almost better than the dance hall.

When the song ends, Steve collapses against Bucky’s chest. “I don’t feel so good,” he says.

“Of course you don’t, punk,” Bucky says, wrapping an arm around Steve’s back and pulling him into his side. “You just drank double your weight.”

“In my defense, that’s not a lot.”

Bucky chuckles, then presses a kiss to Steve’s temple. Though Steve’s face is crushed into Bucky’s chest, Bucky can still see him smile. “I guess not. Let’s go home.”

Later that night, after Bucky and Steve are gone, Charlie will lift the paper into the light and clear his throat. “‘ _Take a Swig with Steve Rogers_ , dutifully compiled by Charles Nathaniel Holliman, Marcus Thaddeus Dunn, and James Buchanan Barnes.’”

Then he’ll read the list out loud:

_Take a swig if Rogers becomes enraged by a man’s selection on the jukebox  
Take another if Rogers confronts whoever chose it  
Take a third if they start necking  
Take a swig if Rogers stares into his bottle and says, ‘God Bless America’  
Take a swig if Rogers mentions ‘the right thing to do’  
Take a swig if Rogers, while flirting, rants about ‘the state of the world’  
Take another if the guy actually listens  
Take a swig ‘when Steve is always right’  
Take a swig if Rogers starts a fight  
Take another if he loses  
Take two if he wins  
Take a swig if Rogers lets someone cut in line for the bathroom  
Take a swig if Rogers talks about his ma  
Take another if he’s flirting when he does it  
Take a swig if Rogers coughs after insisting he can handle his drink_

Dunn will laugh, and Charlie will drink, and they’ll both go home with other men. But before they do, Charlie will whisper some words to the bartender, then nail the list to a corkboard behind the bar. Patrons will read it as they wait for their drinks, pointing and laughing, wondering who this Steve Rogers could be. All the while Steve will be with Bucky, drunk as a sailor, leaned against his chest like he’s a part of it. Bucky will hold him close, and Steve will feel at home.

Years later, Bucky will get his orders and ship out. And Steve will return to Sands Street, blackout drunk, and leap over the bar. Before the bartender can process what’s happening, Steve will shove bottles aside to reach the paper, then hurriedly lift up his pen.

_Take a swig if Steve Rogers is in love_


End file.
